Anne bought several little toys for me this Christmas. The best was a gorgeous Chateau Laguiole Vialis olive wood waiter's corkscrew. Wonderful. Also got a very nice pewter airating decanter funnel with a mesh filter to catch sediment. She also got the Wine Enthusiast aroma kit (which is just like a drinking game for grown-ups), a new set of Schott Zwiesel Titanium port glasses, and something called a Clef du Vin. It is supposed to let you know the aging potential of a wine. I think it is likely a bunch of baloney, but it was fun to play with on Christmas night. Also, my mother-in-law gave me $200 to play with at the wine shop, where there is a nice little 20% off case sale this week. Happy coincidence.

Sounds wonderful, dananne. I've been eyeing that waiter's corkscrew for sometime now. Let me know how you like it! (After my Screwpull broke, all I had was a waiter's corkscrew- took me a couple tries, but I love it!)
I got one of those fancy rabbit ear things for Christmas, not sure if I care for it or not.

The corkscrew would, indeed, make for a nice birthday gift come April -- your dad should get on it [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]

As far as the aroma kit goes, it made for an entertaining "Close your eyes and guess what this is" game on Christmas, and some of the aromas were good to get a handle on, but it may be one of those things that just sits there after the initial novelty wears off. Also, I would have had much more use for it 3-4 years ago, and judging by your TNs and other postings, you may find yourself past it a bit. Perhaps more of a novice's thing, but I'll still play around with it in the evenings. I'm sure it will come in handy when Anne and I get into the usual "That's blackberry" "No, it's blueberry" debates [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]